A Decade of (Very) Early Retirement

This blog post takes a candid look at the first decade of retirement for a couple (us in this case) who left work in their early 40s. We’ll touch on the finances which enabled this choice in the first place. Then we’ll move onto other aspects of life in early retirement, physical and mental health, hobbies and relationships.

If you come across anything of interest in this blog post, or have any questions you’d like to ask, please feel free to pop something in the comments box at the end. I’ve no idea if anyone is interested in what we’re writing, so any feedback is appreciated.

Quick Background

I’m Jay, the son of a coal miner (dad) and a home help (mum). Ju’s dad worked in clothes factories across the UK and her mum was a florist before becoming a full-time mum. We’re not exactly from the landed gentry, although we were lucky to have parents who cared about us. They worked very hard to provide for us, taught us the value of money and laid the foundations for our current lives.

I went to university, got a first class degree in physics and started a PhD before dropping out to take up a job as a technical author (yep, I’d be Dr Buckley in another life). Through a series of moves between and within companies I ended my ‘career’ as an IT project manager. Ju went to ‘the school of life’ and built up her qualifications after formal education. She started out (among other things) as a receptionist before studying marketing at night school and getting chartered status. Through her own series of job moves and redundancies, she eventually found herself leading a marketing team for a blue chip global company.

We live and worked in the English Midlands, within commuting distance of Nottingham and Derby. We didn’t even consider the idea of taking a break from work until we were in our late 30s, and by then had already decided we didn’t want to start a family. For a good few years we had the company of our pooch Charlie, who came on many an adventure with us in our campervan and motorhomes.

Aged 39 we left work and rented out our home, taking to Europe and North Africa for two years in an aged motorhome we named Dave. Living off savings, we eventually ran out of money and came home. Having had a taste of ultimate freedom, the idea of commuting for another 20 or 30 years didn’t appeal. Instead we pulled together a plan, and spent two years running an IT contracting business and renovating a house. That proved enough to enable us to stop working. Other than a short stint of contracting, we’ve been effectively retired for the past decade.

The Finances

Early retirement finances is a big-old topic, enough to fill a book (we’ve written one if you’re interested in the details), so I’ll try keep it (fairly) succinct folks.

Ju once went on TV’s Catchphrase and won enough money to install new windows in her flat. We also had parental help with our wedding, but other than that, we’ve had no windfalls. I took out loans to buy furniture and a motorbike in my early 20s, but since then (other than mortgages) we’ve saved up and bought everything outright.

We both had jobs which generated more income than we felt we needed to spend – although for a while we did try to spend it. We had a three bed detached house with a hot tub. We had a motorbike, campervan, gym and a garage full of tools, toys and gadgets. We’d both backpacked around the world before we met. We’d taken ski holidays together, honeymooned in the Maldives, bought all the gadgets we wanted and generally enjoyed life.

My feeling is this relatively free spending in our earlier decades really helped us later on. It got the #YOLO (you only live once) out of our systems. It killed (to a degree!) the idea that spending money on a big house, cars, motorbikes, holidays and other things leads to happiness. We had all the stuff, but we knew it wasn’t making us feel free or fulfilled, just the opposite. Much of the criticism around the early retirement ‘FIRE’ (financial independence-retire early) movement is how it proposes living very frugally in your early decades. We didn’t feel we’d done that and have no sense of having ‘missed out’.

But we have always saved. We always contributed to work pensions, taking advantage of any employer-matched funding. These are now consolidated into SIPPs (self-invested personal pensions) which we self-manage. I’ve also a defined benefit pension from my last employer. Combined these should generate around £18,000 a year, although we can’t access them until we’re at least 55. Ju has a full NI record and I’m paying voluntary contributions, so we should also be eligible for the state pension from 67 onwards.

Obviously we needed to ‘bridge the gap’ between when we retired and the age we can receive pension income. We did this by generating passive income. When we came from back our first 2-year motorhome tour we were very used to living frugally. I set up an IT contracting business and took a few contracts back at my previous employer. Ju got a job in marketing which enabled us to remortgage the two bed bungalow we lived in when we first met, which we had been renting out for a few years. With the remortgage money we bought a renovation project at auction, a two bed Victorian shop and house which was last used as a butchers. Living in it while doing it up wasn’t the greatest idea though, and took a toll on us.

While doing up the property we lived off Ju’s wage and saved the rest until eventually we had enough to clear the mortgage on the bungalow. We also still owned and rented out the 3 bedroom house we lived in before we went travelling, so the end result was three paid-off houses, one of which has a small shop we also rent out.

We’d also started investing in the stock market in 2015, in a relatively small way at first. We soon learned we were no good at picking individual stocks (we take solace in the knowledge few people are) and invested in a few different funds instead. Eventually we opted to consolidate these into a low-cost fund which invests in thousands of companies across the world. A few years ago, after a bad experience with tenants, we also decided to sell the 3 bed house and move the capital into the worldwide fund.

The shares have been a bumpy ride over the years, with the pandemic crash a memorable (if short-lived) low point. But that’s to be expected and we know the boom-bust cycle will continue into the future. Overall the worldwide fund has grown considerably over the past decade, going up an average of 11.8% a year. We’re not expecting that growth rate to continue, but this performance has considerably improved our financial position to date.

We do minimal work with the shares. We make no attempt to guess which companies will outperform the others. We don’t try to time when we buy shares. We don’t sell into cash when the market crashes. We don’t try and pick dividend-paying companies. We do very little other than shuffle shares into our ISAs (for tax sheltering) and pop as much as we legally can into our SIPPs each year. This is a fairly standard ‘buy and hold, passive index tracker’ strategy.

We’ve also had a few ‘side gigs’ going on which have supplemented our income, thereby reducing the need to sell shares for income. We’ve mentioned the small shop and bungalow we let out. We also have a couple of solar arrays which cut down on our electric bills and generate a small income. We have written and self-published books on Amazon which have sold well. We created a large ensuite room when we renovated the butchers which we let out on Airbnb. Ju earns money by helping folks save money on their utility bills. For a while we earned affiliate and advertising income from this blog and YouTube, although that just about covers the hosting costs these days.

In terms of spending we got through roughly £25,000 a year for the first few years. We were mixing up travelling long-term in our motorhome with living in a small part of the butchers when we were at home (the bit which is now an Airbnb). This meant we could rent out the other bedrooms in the house to a long-term tenant, and enabled us to share some of the bills. These days we have the house to ourselves (other than the Airbnb), and spend around £30,000 a year. We still have the motorhome and travel for two or three months of the year.

I should make it clear we’re in no way qualified to offer financial guidance or advice. Please treat all of the above for information only and take no action based on it. We’d hate to hear from anyone who’d lost money for example. Do your own independent research and consult with an IFA if necessary.

We’ve personally never worked with finance professionals other than an accountant when we had the contracting business. That said, we’ve spent our fair share of time learning from people like Pete Matthew, JL Collins, James Shackell, Pete Adeney and Monevator. We also read widely on the subjects of investing and money management.

Changing Circumstances

Over the years our circumstances have changed, as you might expect.

Brexit constrained our ability to travel freely in Europe. We didn’t know how lucky we were between 2011 and 2020. But to be honest we were starting to tire of endless travel long before we lost our freedom of movement. In all we’ve spent maybe four years on the road, across 35 (or so) countries in Europe and stayed in well over 1,000 places. We feel bad for those coming after us though, who want to spend their retirement enjoying long tours of Europe (it’s still possible, just more constrained).

While we still enjoy travelling in our motorhome, we also enjoy being part of a fixed community and we stopped wanting to full-time some years ago. That doesn’t mean we won’t go back to it in the future, but for the time being we’re happy spending most of our lives in good old bricks ‘n’ mortar.

The status of our parents have changed too. My mum passed away in 2020 leaving my dad alone. He’s very independent and has a good support network around him, but we enjoy being around and being able to help him out. Ju’s mum started to develop dementia a few years ago and now lives in a care home (a very nice one). That leaves her dad living alone too. He’s independent too, but like my dad has some health challenges of his own.

I can remember a conversation we had with an older couple we met while travelling. They were unable to travel themselves, as they were needed to help an elderly relative (our parents were all relatively healthy at the time). We were trying to decide whether to go back to work and build up our investments, or keep travelling. Back then the pull to keep up the nomadic life was very strong indeed! Their advice was to keep going, as once you’re ‘tied down’ by elderly relatives you won’t be able to do it.

I think about that conversation from time to time. We decided to head to the office while our skills and contacts were still relatively fresh. It wasn’t fun, and we could easily have opted to keep travelling, to be motorhome/travel influencers and make an income from YouTube and sponsorship. We’re both glad we opted for the less-fun path, as it’s given us a solid financial foundation. But I still ponder that thought: we gave up a few of years of travel when our parents didn’t need us, which we can never get back. Was it the right decision?

The Mental Shift from Work to Retirement

Hmmm, it’s been a while since we handed in our lanyards, so I’ll have to cast my mind back a bit here!

I can recall a strong sense of ‘cutting the rope’ from safety. Obviously we weren’t enjoying our jobs or we’d never have felt the strong shove needed to quit. But we did enjoy the sense of security a monthly income created. We liked the sense of identity work gave us. In some ways I think we embraced the structure, someone defining what we needed to do each day, plus the uplifting sensation Friday brought.

From what I can remember, I felt a mixed-up sense of exhilaration, guilt, self-doubt and relief which lasted for months, well, years in the case of the guilt. At home we don’t know anyone who quit work as early as us. Almost everyone we knew was busy working paying the bills and bringing up children. It didn’t feel quite right we were able to travel around for years.

That sense of guilt has gradually faded to nothing over the years. I think that came from the recognition that we had some luck, took some chances, made certain difficult decisions, worked hard, studied personal finance and investing and it all, eventually, paid off. We also saw people living in extreme poverty on our travels which made us feel very grateful for what we had.

In terms of structure and deciding what to do each day, that’s an ongoing challenge. We’ve thought of life as being like a large sheet of paper with each day’s activities written out for months and years. When you’re at work, someone else (a boss or customers) has written in each day what you’re expected to do. Your job is to complete those tasks as well as you can. Any free time is your own and there’s usually so little of it you’ve no trouble filling it.

Once you’re into retirement, the sheet goes blank. That can be a pretty scary experience. All of a sudden it’s down to you to write in the activities, and believe me there’s a LOT of time to fill. All that time you spend commuting, working, getting ready to work, thinking about work, recovering from work, studying outside of work, is now cleared. I spend maybe 10 hours a week running and training in the gym, which is roughly how long I used to spend commuting, so hardly touches the sides in terms of filling the plan.

If there’s one piece of advice we can give to someone close to retirement it’s to start planning what you’re going to do with all this time. If you’re thinking of travelling, also think about what you’ll do once that becomes stale. Some people live nomadically for decades, but in our experience most stop after a few years. What’s next? Some buy renovation projects. Some move to a new country. Some start a business. Get your imagination fired up.

It’s easy to become bored, but just as easy to do something new, assuming you can summon the energy and imagination. Start a blog, write a book, read, take up drawing or photography, start a small business, learn how to cook, volunteer for a local club or the council. The things you *could* do (health, space, motivation and finances allowing) are endless. The biggest blocker is, for me at least, summoning the courage to try new things.

Health in Retirement

When we were considering the idea of leaving work so early in life, the stand-out question was whether we could afford it. After that a major concern was our health. I’d come across a few studies which showed people’s health tended to decline more rapidly if they retired than if they’d carried on working. It worried me. Some studies were clearly skewed by the fact people were retiring because of ill health, rather than retirement itself causing the sickness. Others seemed less clear.

One worry I had was alcohol. I’d always enjoyed a beer or three, and while we were travelling through ex-pat communities in Spain in particular I noticed I wasn’t the only one. My weight also crept up over the years to retirement, to the point I was close to the NHS definition of obese. The intense stress of work was no longer present, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse.

I’ve always bounced a little between mild depression and a sort of gentle elation, and that’s carried on into post-work. At times the depression became more worrying and during one such period I decided to try to tackle it with a challenge. I used to run in my 20s, and could recall it was an uplifting time, so took it up again. I entered an uphill half marathon a friend recommended in the Swiss Alps. Long story short, I lost about 20kg and gave up drinking completely. That was almost eight years ago now and since then I’ve remained sober and have run a fair few marathons and ultra marathons.

None of this means we’ve no health challenges of course. The menopause has been an ongoing fight for Ju. I’ve a few age-related issues going on. Nothing’s going to halt the aging process. But we’re both careful to get enough exercise (Ju has also run a marathon, and regularly runs Parkruns, 10ks and half marathons), to eat and drink thoughtfully.

We also know we need to challenge our minds. Ju has been far more successful at this than me, but having two parents with dementia means she’s more motivated. I’ve written a few books, but Ju had some serious editing work to do on them! She’s built a daily habit learning Spanish which she’s kept up for years. She reads, does quizzes and puzzles. She’s volunteered as web manager, secretary and treasurer for our running club, and generally holds her mind very active.

Relationships

What makes us happy? That timeless question has been posed by “the longest in-depth longitudinal study on human life ever done”. “Longitudinal” meaning it has studied multiple generations of people; it’s been going on for a long time and has gleaned a ton of insight into happiness. The study directors say: “it’s brought us to a simple and profound conclusion: Good relationships lead to health and happiness. The trick is that those relationships must be nurtured.”

It wasn’t money, freedom or fame which made people happy, but having a strong social network and good quality relationships with other people.

I’m very fortunate that Ju and I have such a strong relationship. When we first left work we moved from a 3 bed detached house with an extended garage, garden and gym into a 6m by 2m motorhome, a tiny space. We lived in that space, which had a small bathroom built into one corner, for two years straight. After stopping full-time travelling we mixed our time between a motorhome and a 6m by 4m room here at home, which we dubbed ‘The Cooler’. In all we lived for 8 years in this combination of tiny spaces, including throughout the pandemic.

The fact we were able to get along compressed together has to say something about our relationship, I think. Our finances operate in a similar way. They’re combined wherever legally possible. Even when they’re separate (ISAs, SIPPs), we have transparency over what’s in each other’s accounts. We take joint decisions over spending, sometimes down to things which cost just a few quid (we’ve become more relaxed about this over the years).

We try to communicate frequently about how we’re feeling. For a while we instigated ‘Friday Talk’ to remind us to do this. This was a scheduled time each Friday when we’d sit down and chat about anything which was bothering us, things we felt were going well, things we wanted to do in the coming days and months, anything really. This helped avoid issues bubbling along underneath the surface without the other having a clue. Even now, when one of us has something to say, we’ll have a Friday Talk, no matter what day of the week it is.

All this said, for me, relationships are probably the area I need to work on the most, and always have been. I’m introverted by nature and can happily spend a lot of time alone. But at the same time I really enjoy the time I spend with others. I enjoy chatting with friends, family and fellow runners when I get the chance, although I’m pretty rubbish at small talk. If anything, this is the area I miss the most from being at work. Although many of the relationships there felt superficial, they were kind of ready-made.

What Would We do Differently?

If we were starting out again, thinking about leaving work in our early 40s, what might we do differently?

It’s not all been fun and games, and letting go of two secure incomes has probably been the toughest decision we’ve made. It’s required us to do things we wouldn’t have done otherwise. We’re not natural investors and have had to force ourselves to learn about renting out property, and owning shares and bonds. These have generally worked out well for us, but not without heartache, fear and stress.

I don’t think either of us lean towards having regrets though, so we’d probably not change much. We’ve had some amazing adventures, travelling across deserts, mountains, forests, beaches and fjords. We’ve seen wonderful sights, felt the sun on our faces and tasted delicious foods. Our travels also gifted us the chance to enjoy the company of fascinating and inspiring people we’d never have met otherwise. So no, if we were able to go back and chat with our previous, nervous selves we’d give ourselves a hug, tell us to go for it and not worry too much about the future.

Cheers, Jay