tired of 9-5 office job. any other job recommendation?

[sundaymorningstaple]

There are 2 kinds of people who say money is not everything.

1) People like JR8 who have plenty of it

2) People like SMS who have realized it.

And both of them are a minority.

WD I believe you've just about hit it spot on.

[JR8]

Heading off at a slight side-tangent, but in the realm of 'knowing how much is enough', I found this site thought-provoking: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/bankin ... t-planning
The author is an established author re: household finance, and has regular columns in the UK press. The spreadsheet can be used in any currency.

I downloaded the Excel spreadsheet, filled in everything I could think of (current costs, by line-item), then sent it to my wife to add costs specific to her, and to amend any of my costs she thought I'd not got quite right. You can add categories/extra lines as you see fit, so it's very flexible; plus it's free.

I found just going through the process, then sharing it with my wife most revealing (her shoe budget! ay-yor!! ) You could use it to try and identify areas where you might be able to trim costs, the end result is a succinct current picture of your income/outgoings.

I then did a second version, re: trying to envisage how we might ideally live once we retire (back home). That's more subjective as you lose touch of current costs (which you could adjust for future inflation up to a notional date of retirement), and simply trying to envisage needs/wishes in a future stage of your life isn't a simple task either. That said it gives you a ball-park figure to consider, and so again was useful and thought-provoking. It's a process I might try and repeat every couple of years, just to get some comfort we're... er, not so much 'on-target', but at least in the right ballpark

[Primrose Hill]

money is everything to us

You forgot power and teh wimmenz.

Money can buy those

Empire building
I am in the SMS camp.

[Wd40]

Regarding knowing how much is enough, I think you need to get to a certain age before you start calculating it. May be 55? We are in our mid 30s I think its too early.

I just read in another forum, an interesting quote. "Beyond a certain point money cannot be spent, it can only be wasted"

My style until now has been to stash away everything that I don't need. But at any point of time if I feel I have too much, I think I will reduce my earning and start relaxing a bit rather than enhance my lifestyle and spend more.

I would be curious to know how people respond to situation where you feel you have made enough. Would you reduce your numerator or increase your denominator?

[Primrose Hill]

I have a figure in my head and once that's achieved, if it were could be, I would like to work part-time. Hubby, I know will retire. We aren't planning to retire "back home" per se but will be in Europe. I don't mind my work, hence, I don't mind that I continue working or at least work enough to have private medical insurance from the company.

[JR8]

Regarding knowing how much is enough, I think you need to get to a certain age before you start calculating it. May be 55? We are in our mid 30s I think its too early.
I just read in another forum, an interesting quote. "Beyond a certain point money cannot be spent, it can only be wasted"
My style until now has been to stash away everything that I don't need. But at any point of time if I feel I have too much, I think I will reduce my earning and start relaxing a bit rather than enhance my lifestyle and spend more.
I would be curious to know how people respond to situation where you feel you have made enough. Would you reduce your numerator or increase your denominator?

Hmmm, I tend to disagree. Knowing how easy it is to 'put off until tomorrow, what you don't have to do today' I can't really see any point/age at which it's too young to at least have a first think about. Pensions accrue so slowly, and 'time-in' a pension scheme tends to work so much to your advantage what with compounding interest.... the flip-side is that you see people who don't even think about it, are complacent, put it off longer and longer, until they're 50-60 facing a real struggle. Suddenly they're faced with having to save 100%+ of their income (towards the end of their careers), down-size their homes to realise cash, to come close to what they need. A good example would be my father (/parents), who in his own words was/(is) 'never in the slightest interested in money'. QED, and it really pains me... Retirement ought to be ideally the point you're confidently kicking-back, but in his and others' cases, even 15-20 year ago with a big UK pensions blow-up he was facing the struggle of his financial life to salvage some kind of dignified retirement.

re: '"Beyond a certain point money cannot be spent, it can only be wasted"'
I agree it is not straight-forward, and you can only work on estimates/guesstimates until retirement day comes; but that is surely better than flying blind through almost all of your working life.
But the issue is not saving so much that you'll never get to spend it (and hence leave it to others); it's about ensuring your reasonable expectations will be met and funded.
I've considered this further (rather a silly extreme i know, but...). Say i save the assets required to reliably generate $x a year. And say when I retire I actually find I/we're perfectly 100% happy living on $x- say 25%, what then? My current thinking is that a) I have no obligation beyond ensuring my wife is fully funded should she survive me. Beyond that, b) I have no intention of leaving any money for anyone else - they all make do, and/or are young and smart with rosy futures of their own - no point me scrimping just to hand a damned huge surprise gift to relatives...

So my thinking is to have a future annual budget projected, and the asset base to generate it. Being an inherently tight b*stard I'm quite sure the perceived budget might be too much. So I have occasional thoughts re if there might be a point I'd have to *force* myself to spend the income, even on extravagances. A life's hard work is to enjoy, not hand on a plate to someone else. So if say, that meant going on a dive trip, and rather than flying economy as usual, 'going nuts' with my wife and flying 1st class... well, why not? // I'm not saying anything like that is likely, but it represents my direction of thinking. [To be clear.... I've flown a lot but I have never flown 1st class before].

My priorities (per current thinking):-
- Living as best we can within the above dictated reasonable parameters, and without risk to those future hoped for parameters. It's a parallel to 'never allowing your spending to shift gear and living up to your last pay-rise'.
- Ensuring now that the future is appropriately funded via the above modesty of the present.

The unknowns:
- Considering my nature I don't think I'm low-balling what's required.
- Switching from being a lifetime saver, to having an annual spending budget, and feeling a .... er, pressure to enjoy it vs 'wiser/inherent senses'. This thing, I really don't know how I will cross that bridge, as it will be SO against my nature. In other words, it is almost contrary to live by the required rules that allow this thinking, and then completely change to enjoy the outcome at some random point in time.

>> 'I would be curious to know how people respond to situation where you feel you have made enough.'

I suspect the thinking behind what I describe is perhaps not of a mindset that readily accepts a clear marker that 'you have made enough, now, today'. There will always be a doubt, and thoughts of 'BUT what if... x/y/z'.

But i am more comfortable proceeding as I am, than going through what my rather financially random parents did. As a baseline I know (now) we have a just about OK retirement covered. Given another c10 years and we should (touch-wood) be a bit better than ok. That's what I'm working on securing.


Just my 2c....

[Wd40]

Thanks JR8, excellent write up as always.

[Primrose Hill]

Perfecto, JR8, as usual. Priorities are different at different stages of my life, I think. In my 20s, my husband and I were saddled with student loans, then we bought our first home but no money to do anything to the flat as such it had pink curtains with pink carpets even in the bathroom. Begining of 30s, we had our daughter, priorities started to change. We set up a 6months emergency funds, save to buy a new car, took a small loan & renovated the flat. Started to save for school too, we knew that we were middle of the road folks working in the financial industry, ideally we will put her into state school for primary school and private school for secondary school. Then we upside, sold the flat bought a house, one road down from the flat. We put together a spreadsheet with a works that needed to be done/contingency funds etc for the house, schools, childcare, car etc. And we would diarise each of these, so that each expenditure is accounted for and it's all spread out. Now we are in our 40s, we are re-prioritising, daughter will be heading to university soon, that will have to accounted for, then helping her on the housing ladder, preparing to slow down ourselves etc.
Since we account for major all major spendings, if we want to go travel, 2/3 times a year and half a dozen short trips, we can. We don't live an extravagent lifestyle. We plan.

[JR8]

@PH IIRC you mentioned a day or two ago looking for a budget calculator I'd quoted/linked.

If I have that correct, I suspect the link in my June-24 post above might be it.

[Wd40]

PH & JR8, your generation benefited greatly by the massive reductions in interest rates over the decades from what double digit to nearly 0 and the resulting bubble in property prices.

Now with rates at 0 and they can only go up from here, the "get rich by buying property" trick wont work.

[PNGMK]

I've been thinking of becoming an Uber driver. How about that as a change?

[Wd40]

I've been thinking of becoming an Uber driver. How about that as a change?

I have been thinking about going back to India and setting up a money changer business. How about that as a change? I am serious.

[ecureilx]

I have been thinking about going back to India and setting up a money changer business. How about that as a change? I am serious.

From what I know from relatives in money changing business, they make money on hawala or undial .. not much from the money changing ... I hope you know that.

[Wd40]

I have been thinking about going back to India and setting up a money changer business. How about that as a change? I am serious.

From what I know from relatives in money changing business, they make money on hawala or undial .. not much from the money changing ... I hope you know that.

IC. I didnt know that. I am not looking at making lot of money, just something that will make enough money to survive and also something that wont be stressful and something that I have an interest in. Currencies, financial markets is clearly something that I like and not IT. So looking at options...

[JR8]

PH & JR8, your generation benefited greatly by the massive reductions in interest rates over the decades from what double digit to nearly 0 and the resulting bubble in property prices.
Now with rates at 0 and they can only go up from here, the "get rich by buying property" trick wont work.

'Your generation' - cheeky blighter, how old do you think I am?

What happened to 'my generation' was that our forbears (parents etc) happily paid into compulsory schemes such as UK National Insurance, and voluntarily into employee schemes (employee pensions etc), and then seeing the whole lot go up in flames realised we had to go and do something directly for ourselves. Those schemes until that time had been presumed to be rock-solid future pension arrangements. By the time I went self-employed, I'd 20yrs contributions in the former, and 10+ in the latter, and I assume they both now have zero value now. But who knows... as you see it's not worth my time even finding out how to try and check.

Luckily, as a devout saver, I scrimped and invested what I could of my salary (by living well below by means). The assets I've got now derive from the latter, from self-denial if you like; employment covered my then monthly outgoings and provided me the seed money for investing on my own. Every cent I now have derived from the latter. Apologies for going on, but it never just falls into your lap.

Low interest rates never factored into my early property investments. Buying investment property was unorthodox back then, something only 'professionals' did. Getting mortgages was hard and very expensive. Whilst LIBOR (or 'BBR') was at say 5%, my loans were on a 8.99% 5 year fixed rate (and stress tested to at least 130% net rent/mortgage 'coverage'. The business plan was based on and still indicated a net annual profit despite that ghastly margin. I.e. I had no inkling the economy would implode and rates drop... *no one ever does*. When I remortgaged 5 years on, I switched to BBR+1%. The investment property market by then was growing, and there was much more competitive lending. My final remortgaging some years later still was [IIRC] to BBR+0.24%

Keep in mind that rates dropped like that because the economy imploded. So whilst you suggest I (and others) benefited from low interest rates re: my investments, the broken state of the economy also ended my career (and wiped out both my future pension accruals, and my fathers actual pension). A double-edged sword.

'The get rich by buying property trick won't work'. Yes, and they said the same when I started too, in fact the few people who knew what I was doing mostly thought I was mad, 'fully departed from the programme'. So, I don't advocate any 'get rich quick schemes', mine never was, if anything it was a 'get comfortably off very slowly' Do not chase high or immediate returns in currently fashionable schemes. They are invariably snake-oil, or by the time you've heard of them you're buying in an the top. Trading 'currency pairs', buying plots of land with no planning in UK/AUS, buying off-plan in a foreign country... etc*100. Many or most will lose, but the only ones you'll hear from from are the few, who perhaps by luck, came good.

So there is your challenge, 'who moved my cheese?'. These days it's popular to invest in property, and it's a damned sight easier and cheaper (in fees, etc) to do so. An 'accessible investment' if you like. Maybe that's why the mass opportunity in it has perhaps passed. I still know people making good returns in property, but they have the knowledge and capital to take it to a higher level than just buying a place and renting it. That might be say buying a building, or building plot, clearing it, then building on it. The planning/permits required are extremely complicated to get, it takes expert knowledge (gained, or acquired via hired professionals), and far beyond what any buy-to-letter (incl the former me!) could do. So, their return comes from harvesting in their own niche, a place most people can't ever get to.

Where is the fresh supply of cheese now? No idea; it seems by definition such opportunities/possibilities are obscured and/or inaccessible to the masses. It takes much sweat to find them, but they will be there. An added challenge these days is that mass access to the internet has to some extent levelled the playing field. Finding, researching, discussing possibilities is much easier than ever before. Home internet (IME) really only started becoming mainstream, i.e. around when I first got it, around 15/17 years ago.


p.s. You suggest succeeding as a result of a 'bubble'. In reality bubbles ruin most investors, as they congratulate themselves on their dazzling scheme, and often put in more, expecting that scheme to continue to dazzle. Few sell at the top, maybe it is they that have the 'luck'?

The element of 'luck' I had was that a relative of mine, a distant one, I've met her maybe only 5 times, is an extremely sharp investor. Of Indian extraction, a lawyer, former refugee, and blind, she started investing in property in the 80s. It was another relative of mine who mentioned that in passing, and it caught my attention. So I visited her and discussed how she did what she did. Later on to begin with I tapped into her network of contacts, agents, mortgage broker, and she was my lawyer back then also. That helped a lot. These days we have LinkedIn but it'll never give you that kind of access and info. If you have an idea, try and find someone who has done similar. Preferably via family, or via friends. That kind of insight can be priceless.