BigNick
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Hi,
I'm a Brit, living in France, but I visit the US quite often and do not belong to that 90% group of Brits who think that Americans speak funny or Europeans who think that Americans are out to force-feed us all with bad food.
I'm 49 and my wife is 52. She's happy to work until she's 60, having had her years from 33 to 48 off bringing up kids. I've been working since age 21 and the BS is starting to get to me.
I work for an international organisation. That means a very nice tax-free salary and lots of BS. After 28 years in IT (which is also the field in which I got my degree) I've just been moved to HR (!). This is BS squared, because we can't fire anyone and there is no money to do anything about personnel development. So we spend all day fighting fires, most of them caused by irresponsible (in all senses of the word) management. This is not what I want to get out of bed for.
At present we make about 180K (net) per year (140K for me, 40K for Mrs BigNick) - numbers are in Euros but given the cost of living they might as well be in dollars. We rent our home (1600/mo) so we are flexible. We put about 65K/year aside in savings and another 20K goes on college expenses, which will drop off in a couple of years.
If I stay till 60 then with our savings and work-related pension, we will have at least much income as we currently spend. But here's my way of looking at it: I reckon that I can do what I like until I'm 75 (after which, I'll be very cheap to run: bottle of wine, cricket on TV, Skype to talk to the grandchildren). On that basis, I have 25 good years left. Why would I spend 40% of my available time working?
So, I have to decide when to cut loose. Every year I stay on will put 70K in the bank and 4K/year on my word-related pension.
In about a year I may have the opportunity to do some work for a small American company. I reckon they would pay me 50K instead of the 140K I make now but it would be a blast. Three or four years of that and we would probably be close enough to our overall savings goal.
But, if I walked away from 140K, I would start to feel guilty. If I stay on 5 more years, that's 350K in the bank. That would be a great start in the housing market for each of our two kids, both of whom are bright but unlikely to get jobs in corporate finance or anything else that pays big bucks. How far should I take that into consideration?
Thanks for reading, and for any comments. By the way, if anyone is thinking of retiring to France, I'd be delighted to help with any information I can give.
I'm a Brit, living in France, but I visit the US quite often and do not belong to that 90% group of Brits who think that Americans speak funny or Europeans who think that Americans are out to force-feed us all with bad food.
I'm 49 and my wife is 52. She's happy to work until she's 60, having had her years from 33 to 48 off bringing up kids. I've been working since age 21 and the BS is starting to get to me.
I work for an international organisation. That means a very nice tax-free salary and lots of BS. After 28 years in IT (which is also the field in which I got my degree) I've just been moved to HR (!). This is BS squared, because we can't fire anyone and there is no money to do anything about personnel development. So we spend all day fighting fires, most of them caused by irresponsible (in all senses of the word) management. This is not what I want to get out of bed for.
At present we make about 180K (net) per year (140K for me, 40K for Mrs BigNick) - numbers are in Euros but given the cost of living they might as well be in dollars. We rent our home (1600/mo) so we are flexible. We put about 65K/year aside in savings and another 20K goes on college expenses, which will drop off in a couple of years.
If I stay till 60 then with our savings and work-related pension, we will have at least much income as we currently spend. But here's my way of looking at it: I reckon that I can do what I like until I'm 75 (after which, I'll be very cheap to run: bottle of wine, cricket on TV, Skype to talk to the grandchildren). On that basis, I have 25 good years left. Why would I spend 40% of my available time working?
So, I have to decide when to cut loose. Every year I stay on will put 70K in the bank and 4K/year on my word-related pension.
In about a year I may have the opportunity to do some work for a small American company. I reckon they would pay me 50K instead of the 140K I make now but it would be a blast. Three or four years of that and we would probably be close enough to our overall savings goal.
But, if I walked away from 140K, I would start to feel guilty. If I stay on 5 more years, that's 350K in the bank. That would be a great start in the housing market for each of our two kids, both of whom are bright but unlikely to get jobs in corporate finance or anything else that pays big bucks. How far should I take that into consideration?
Thanks for reading, and for any comments. By the way, if anyone is thinking of retiring to France, I'd be delighted to help with any information I can give.
) If it were me , i would think long and hard moving to the 50k job that will be "awesome" from the 140K job that "sucks". the new job is likely not quite as awesome as you are imagining and vice versa on the existing job. 
