Hi guys, I am 47, living in Southern Europe with 3 kids under 6. Neither my wife nor I work because until I was 43 I had a reasonably highly paid job elsewhere, which allowed us to come to where we are now, buy a modest place to live, and also a quite nice place to rent out. Each with no mortgage. Right now we live on the rental income of the bigger place.
I did not like the corporate world much so I was happy to leave it. And my wife is one of those people who has faith in the universe and thinks everything will be OK, so I should just be 'in the moment' enjoying this time with our kids. But what is ruining it for me is my sense of guilt that while I am still relatively young and healthy, I am not amassing a bit more money. Because although the rental income covers our costs and the house is in a high demand area, where it's not difficult to find tenants, the reality is that the two houses are all we have. No pension (not even a state one; worked in too many different countries) and nothing else. We do have free healthcare and higher education where we are, so there is that...gotta love Euro- socialism
The rental income is about 2000 euros a month and although one or both of us will probably earn something occasionally over the next 20 years, it will be low paid stuff, so my guilt is more around the fact that I am highly qualified (thanks to the sacrifices of my parents as well as my own) and so the income I am foregoing (and with each year of no work, making it much more difficult to get back to) is much more than I will ever get being here and doing this. Plus there is the fact that when you read online about how much you should have when you retire, it seems like the figures are very high. Our assets (the two houses) are currently worth around 550k euros and that, as I have said, is all we have.
I guess my question here is whether anyone else has been in a similar situation to us at any point, and what happened! It would be great to hear about other people's experiences. Thanks for reading.
I did not like the corporate world much so I was happy to leave it. And my wife is one of those people who has faith in the universe and thinks everything will be OK, so I should just be 'in the moment' enjoying this time with our kids. But what is ruining it for me is my sense of guilt that while I am still relatively young and healthy, I am not amassing a bit more money. Because although the rental income covers our costs and the house is in a high demand area, where it's not difficult to find tenants, the reality is that the two houses are all we have. No pension (not even a state one; worked in too many different countries) and nothing else. We do have free healthcare and higher education where we are, so there is that...gotta love Euro- socialism
The rental income is about 2000 euros a month and although one or both of us will probably earn something occasionally over the next 20 years, it will be low paid stuff, so my guilt is more around the fact that I am highly qualified (thanks to the sacrifices of my parents as well as my own) and so the income I am foregoing (and with each year of no work, making it much more difficult to get back to) is much more than I will ever get being here and doing this. Plus there is the fact that when you read online about how much you should have when you retire, it seems like the figures are very high. Our assets (the two houses) are currently worth around 550k euros and that, as I have said, is all we have.
I guess my question here is whether anyone else has been in a similar situation to us at any point, and what happened! It would be great to hear about other people's experiences. Thanks for reading.