Day: March 20, 2022

I started this blog almost two years ago thinking that 60 was a good age to retire at, no real reason but mainly because that was when my parents retired. I had read all Mr Money Mustashe and because I hadn’t formally started on this FIRE journey in my thirties believed that there was no other option than the 60 retirement target.

Since then have done a lot more reading and watched numerous podcasts and then recalculated the potential pathways we could take. Numerous lightbulb moments and also taking into account things that have and are happening globally; ongoing pandemic, recent share market significant drop and the great resignation. 

Into this mix, is my own role as a health manager and over the last two years working at the pointy end of the pandemic response. And like many other folks questioning whether working the 8 to 5+ “is all there is” to get us to this retirement dream?

So where are we now?

With my calculations and numerous spreadsheets (you know I mean numerous), we have enough savings, coupled with NZ Govt Super and my NZDF super confirmed that we can cease full-time employment in December 2023.

But as I said reading and watching blogs/podcasts we are not sure about suddenly ending full-time employment straight away. So done some recalculations and if we wanted to and coupled with the “I have had enough” feelings about work, am looking at both of us going down to 3 days per week starting next year. Haven’t discussed this with work at this stage to see if it is indeed doable. With Ms S she isn’t sure either. If we can do this, we are looking at this approach for 2023 and then either cutting down to 2 days per week for a further year or two. 

Two of the key factors are maintaining a connection with the “outside” world and easing ourselves into our new way of living. My brother-in-law spoke to me about this years ago and I had actually forgotten about this, with my key driver was just about stopping work.

But on the other side, there are other factors to consider. My colleague was speaking just last week about a number of her friends that had stopped work at the same time as their other halves and almost had to go through the whole Bruce Tuckman approach, you know the one; forming storming, norming and performing approach just to be able to live full time together in their retirement 🤣🤣. Jeepers I hope that isn’t us…..

So this year will give us the time to fully plan and practice living on the annual spend that I have based my calculations on, continue to invest, focus on health and think about what we will be actually doing over the next 1-2, 3-5, 5-10 and so on.

So we just need to implement the plan, you think it would be easy!!!! However I feel it’s slowly all starting to come together.

Very happy days

It has been well over a year since I wrote anything on my blog, and boy you do wonder where all the time/days/months have gone. I wrote this in December 2021 and only now got around to posting it.

So a bit of a recap. You may recall in 2020 that we had to say farewell to our two beloved pets, Merkin and Charlie. Our remaining dog Benedict wasn’t himself and me as the dog whisper thought he was quite lonely, so thought we would get another retriever. That is easier said than done. Firstly not the right time of the year, hadn’t really thought about that and secondly trying to get one from around the country seemed like a bit of a challenge. Luckily we found a local breeder who agreed for us to purchase one of her dogs.

We wanted another female and there were two to pick from so we choose one. As we were doing a visit and holding the one we had chosen, we noticed that one of the other pubs had curled up on Ms S’s leg and fallen asleep. At the time we didn’t think much of it but at the second visit to see the pup, this other one came up and was first to greet us and again curled up around us. We went home and Ms S and I rang the breeder to change our minds to pick the other one. We did recall from somewhere that your pets choose you, and this little one did.

Covid-19 still continues to be a challenge with little outbreaks and surges still occurring but we were learning to live with that. Things were getting back to pretty much normal with plantings, work and connecting with family and friends

In November 2020 our new pup Lottie arrived and puppies are so cute. It was actually a bit emotional to have her brought home. Didn’t think it would be but was a bit like filling the void that Charlie’s passing had created.

Ok, that was the easy part the next was how on earth do we doggie proof our section when over the back of the property doesn’t have a back fence. Luckily for us, we still have all the hot wire fencing and posts from our previous property that we used with the sheep. Unfortunately, the portable battery pack had given up the ghost and needed replacing. Then over the course of a few months installed rolls of chicken wire (I mean rolls of chicken wire!!), tacked onto the post and rail fences. Bit of a mission as some of our shrubs and trees are now pretty established. 

So a year on and there have been a few challenges with carpet pee, training, shoe chewing, vomiting, and early morning wake up calls. But it has all been worth it as she is a great companion along with Ben who follows us around the property or just “hangs”.

Christmas is always a fabulous time to connect with family and friends and seeing our little nephews open their pressies is always joyful with the looks on their faces. Then a bit of a relax with some games, good books and a few beverages.

Over the year I have done a lot of thinking about retirement, investing, minimalism, eco-footprint and many many other aspects. As you know I have always been a fan of spreadsheets as many of the retirement calculators are too “one size fits all”. 

With our savings and projected spending that we will do in retirement, I believe that we can finish full-time employment by December 2023. A full three years earlier than originally planned. Ms S isn’t too convinced we can do this, but going by the numbers over the last 5 years I believe we can.

There are a few steps first. The biggest spend and one that we have completed is to fully pay off the house. The last payment we made early December and boy what a good feeling that is. The next step is to allocate for 2022 the amount that we will have to live on when we do finish working. So for 2022 we will have $65,000. This covers all of our outgoings and does include a few drinks at our local, some dinners, movie nights and a NZ holiday. Another big step is to fully save and invest the difference. A big question is where to invest this?

Mary Holm’s new book “A Richer You” talks about the 3 step approach; cash, bonds and shares, with the movement of funds from and to each area and the time span for these. A really good read. 

Also joined a paid weekly live webinar Against All Odds (AAO) which is hosted by the team at Prosperity Of Life (which I have bought a business opportunity with, not realised yet but that is another blog episode) which gives their views on certain investment opportunities. Not advice but just what they are doing. From this I have bought some shares in areas I hadn’t thought of before, mainly around technology and emerging services following from this; SaaS, TaaS, 5g and a number of other areas. Also have bought a few cryptocurrencies as the number available will slowly be reducing over the next ten years and the value should increase.

Some other areas are with InvestNow, Hatch, Sharesies, and more funds to our KiwiSaver accounts. Noting that we will be a youthful 57 when we cease our salaried employment roles and need to keep our KiwiSavers ticking over to get the yearly Government minimum contribution. With InvestNow, will be one to two large PIE investments, Hatch most likely index funds like VTI or VOO. Sharesies is where most of the more risky stuff is from the AAO webinar, along with some in Tradestation. Will look at moving these shares to Hatch as they are a NZ based company and seem to have it sorted for tax. 

Cryptocurrencies are interesting, took me a while to sort how this all works with purchases and then moving the coins of the platform to one or two wallets. Will so how this all goes.

So for us a big year ahead, mainly to see if all our plans actually do pan out. The big question is “can we actually live on $65,000”? As you can imagine I have a spreadsheet to track this🤣🤣🤣.

I would have to say – totally yes. Other people do and with kids.

Happy Days