music-and-ski
Recycles dryer sheets
Hi there. My wife and I are mid fifties in Canada. I have been thinking of retiring mostly because my parents retired in their mid-fifties. I played around with FIRECalc looking at full retirement. I found we can't afford full retirement yet without reducing spending dramatically.
When I was much younger and loving my career, I had the "3 days a week, 8 months a year, 3 years out of 5" semi-retirement plan. (3/5)*(8/12)*(3/5) is 25% of a full-time job. I felt if I had a good reputation, and still loved my job, I could consult that much and keep doing it until I died. For some reason, I had forgotten about the "semi-retirement plan" vision I had when I was younger. Now that I've reacquainted myself with that plan, I'm no longer stressed about trying to find enough work to keep me busy 40 hours a week (I'm self employed).
We have a ski vacation home, and I'd like to ski more. Typically I'm getting about 40 days of skiing in each season, I think I'd like to get 60 to 80 days in. I'd also like to put more time into being a musician. I may be investing some money into music, e.g. paying musicians to perform, but hopefully that will end up at least revenue neutral.
We do like to travel, but find 3 weeks is a long enough vacation. The last few years we've been using home exchanges to keep travel costs lower, and also to make things more comfortable than the typical hotel. So, I think we could travel more (maybe 2 different 3 week vacations a year) and still spend the same amount we've been spending.
All of our investments are tax sheltered in RRSPs. It's 90% stocks and a lot are dividend paying companies. The optimistic FIRECalc scenarios look great. The pessimistic ones are scary. But, if things go poorly with the investments, we could sell the vacation home. And, few people actually ski in their late 70s, and almost no-one skis in their 90s. Skiing itself is actually not too expensive, if you buy a season pass, ski at the same place, get the seniors discount on the ski pass, and shop for used gear. It's the vacation home that's expensive.
To make a long story short, I'm now thinking about semi-retirement, focusing more on skiing and music. Psychologically, we're relying on the vacation home equity as a cushion for if other investments go sour and/or there isn't enough part-time consulting and/or we get tired of skiing.
When I was much younger and loving my career, I had the "3 days a week, 8 months a year, 3 years out of 5" semi-retirement plan. (3/5)*(8/12)*(3/5) is 25% of a full-time job. I felt if I had a good reputation, and still loved my job, I could consult that much and keep doing it until I died. For some reason, I had forgotten about the "semi-retirement plan" vision I had when I was younger. Now that I've reacquainted myself with that plan, I'm no longer stressed about trying to find enough work to keep me busy 40 hours a week (I'm self employed).
We have a ski vacation home, and I'd like to ski more. Typically I'm getting about 40 days of skiing in each season, I think I'd like to get 60 to 80 days in. I'd also like to put more time into being a musician. I may be investing some money into music, e.g. paying musicians to perform, but hopefully that will end up at least revenue neutral.
We do like to travel, but find 3 weeks is a long enough vacation. The last few years we've been using home exchanges to keep travel costs lower, and also to make things more comfortable than the typical hotel. So, I think we could travel more (maybe 2 different 3 week vacations a year) and still spend the same amount we've been spending.
All of our investments are tax sheltered in RRSPs. It's 90% stocks and a lot are dividend paying companies. The optimistic FIRECalc scenarios look great. The pessimistic ones are scary. But, if things go poorly with the investments, we could sell the vacation home. And, few people actually ski in their late 70s, and almost no-one skis in their 90s. Skiing itself is actually not too expensive, if you buy a season pass, ski at the same place, get the seniors discount on the ski pass, and shop for used gear. It's the vacation home that's expensive.
To make a long story short, I'm now thinking about semi-retirement, focusing more on skiing and music. Psychologically, we're relying on the vacation home equity as a cushion for if other investments go sour and/or there isn't enough part-time consulting and/or we get tired of skiing.
