Hi there. I’ve been lurking for a little but thought it best I stop and actually introduce myself. As you might guess from the name I am British and now UK-based, but I worked overseas for over 20 years and was lucky enough to benefit from good expat packages and generally lower tax rates than the UK, so saved quite a bit. I’m coming up to 49 years old and Mrs. BritChap and I have two lovely daughters aged 12 and 6.
So…..we have around £3.3m in non-pension assets, split £1.8m in stocks / tracker-style funds, £300k fixed deposits, £300k peer-to-peer lending, £100k in wine (if it all goes to hell I can at least drink some of our assets!) and £800k in an investment property that we let out. In addition to this, we also own our own home, which is worth around £1.4m. We have no debt.
Pension-wise, I have a DB pension from a previous job that will pay me £47k p.a. (in today’s money – it is inflation protected up to max of 5% p.a.) when I hit 60. I also have DC contributions into my current pension scheme, which I estimate will produce a pension of £11k p.a. from the age of 55. I continued to contribute to National Insurance whilst I was abroad so I will get close to a full state pension when I hit 67. That’s about £5k p.a. in today’s money. Mrs. B. does not work or have any pension herself.
My work is in the financial services industry and by most people’s standards it is very well remunerated. I can generally save around £150k a year, depending on bonus levels and stock price performance. But it is very intense, involves lots of overseas travel (not always to the most desirable of places) and I am getting very close to the point of throwing the towel in, so that I can actually be with my family rather than away from home or locked away in my study when I am not at the office. There is a possibility that I could do some consultancy work after retiring, and I will certainly aim for that, but it cannot be absolutely counted on. I don’t imagine doing nothing at all, but I’m not factoring any post-retirement job income into my plans as it is very uncertain what that would be and I am not going to be looking for anything too well remunerated anyway, because that would likely just put me back to ‘square one’ in term of lifestyle.
I conservatively estimate our current year spending to be £70k. That includes my younger daughter’s current school fees of around £11k a year but not my older daughter’s education to 18 (which I have pre-paid as there is a minor tax advantage to do so). It also factors in allowances for a new car every five years or so, home upkeep etc. It might sound high to some, but it translates to a comfortable middle class existence for a family in a nice enough part of London, rather than the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
The plan is to sell the house and move out of London when my younger daughter heads off to senior school in 5 years time. I think we will have no trouble finding somewhere we like for around half of the value of our current home, thus liberating around £700k to go into income-generating assets.
I guess I am stuck in a bit of a OMY syndrome. Partly this is because the money is good (and, whenever I leave, I walk away from at least £500k in ‘golden handcuffs’) and partly because the kids are relatively young, and I do not want to risk their education at all. That said, I’ve had a crack at FIRECalc and have my own financial modeling on a spreadsheet: the conclusion I come to is that it would take a really quite pessimistic set of circumstances to prevail for a longish time before we have much of a threat to our financial security.
Whilst this forum is truly great, it is of course US centric. So that makes the general advice very useful but not so much things for things like tax. I would be particularly interested if anyone knows any really good retirement modeling resources for the UK and any ideas around best managing the tax implications of moving from employment to retirement in the UK. Of course, any general comments on whether I am being an idiot for not just retiring now (or perhaps not?) would be welcome too.
Cheers!
So…..we have around £3.3m in non-pension assets, split £1.8m in stocks / tracker-style funds, £300k fixed deposits, £300k peer-to-peer lending, £100k in wine (if it all goes to hell I can at least drink some of our assets!) and £800k in an investment property that we let out. In addition to this, we also own our own home, which is worth around £1.4m. We have no debt.
Pension-wise, I have a DB pension from a previous job that will pay me £47k p.a. (in today’s money – it is inflation protected up to max of 5% p.a.) when I hit 60. I also have DC contributions into my current pension scheme, which I estimate will produce a pension of £11k p.a. from the age of 55. I continued to contribute to National Insurance whilst I was abroad so I will get close to a full state pension when I hit 67. That’s about £5k p.a. in today’s money. Mrs. B. does not work or have any pension herself.
My work is in the financial services industry and by most people’s standards it is very well remunerated. I can generally save around £150k a year, depending on bonus levels and stock price performance. But it is very intense, involves lots of overseas travel (not always to the most desirable of places) and I am getting very close to the point of throwing the towel in, so that I can actually be with my family rather than away from home or locked away in my study when I am not at the office. There is a possibility that I could do some consultancy work after retiring, and I will certainly aim for that, but it cannot be absolutely counted on. I don’t imagine doing nothing at all, but I’m not factoring any post-retirement job income into my plans as it is very uncertain what that would be and I am not going to be looking for anything too well remunerated anyway, because that would likely just put me back to ‘square one’ in term of lifestyle.
I conservatively estimate our current year spending to be £70k. That includes my younger daughter’s current school fees of around £11k a year but not my older daughter’s education to 18 (which I have pre-paid as there is a minor tax advantage to do so). It also factors in allowances for a new car every five years or so, home upkeep etc. It might sound high to some, but it translates to a comfortable middle class existence for a family in a nice enough part of London, rather than the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
The plan is to sell the house and move out of London when my younger daughter heads off to senior school in 5 years time. I think we will have no trouble finding somewhere we like for around half of the value of our current home, thus liberating around £700k to go into income-generating assets.
I guess I am stuck in a bit of a OMY syndrome. Partly this is because the money is good (and, whenever I leave, I walk away from at least £500k in ‘golden handcuffs’) and partly because the kids are relatively young, and I do not want to risk their education at all. That said, I’ve had a crack at FIRECalc and have my own financial modeling on a spreadsheet: the conclusion I come to is that it would take a really quite pessimistic set of circumstances to prevail for a longish time before we have much of a threat to our financial security.
Whilst this forum is truly great, it is of course US centric. So that makes the general advice very useful but not so much things for things like tax. I would be particularly interested if anyone knows any really good retirement modeling resources for the UK and any ideas around best managing the tax implications of moving from employment to retirement in the UK. Of course, any general comments on whether I am being an idiot for not just retiring now (or perhaps not?) would be welcome too.
Cheers!
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