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Retirement

We have a four bedroom house with only the two of us living here now. I'd happily rent a room or two out for £500 each a month but my missus doesn't feel comfortable about strangers living here (which is fair enough tbh).
Downsizing may be the answer
- New home & spare cash
 

I like to be organised, as does the misdus for holidays, and she doesnt travel light so we just go on a package. Works out similar to doing it all separate when I price it up and we have the comfort of reps and helplines if we need them, which we might, who knows.

Went on a package in March and July this year. The Tui app was excellent for info and assistance. I didn't bother with the reps on either trip tbh, only time I saw one was with a clipboard on arrival.
Downsizing may be the answer
- New home & spare cash

My missus is reluctant to move. Likes the street and the house has a lot of memories bringing the kids up.
 
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Have pensions done well this year in general? Biggish one with the pru made £200 last year. (£8k 2022)
People’s Rubbish rip off has made SFA since it started. Time move that.
If they're tied to stocks they will have done bugger all.

Ftse hasn't actually risen much at all in part 3 or 4 years

In fact , it's hardly risen since 2007 - the financial crash , austerity , Brexit, Covid , Brexit part 2 ,Ukraine, Truss & Kamikwasi......

....... it never gets a run of growth
 
Downsizing may be the answer
- New home & spare cash
That's my plan for 10 years from now. Hopefully Robson Green stops doing the "Move to Northumberland" advert TV shows and goes back to fishing. I'd be happy to buy him a new rod. I was in Wooler last week and I always look at the estate agent window. Prices have gone up massively recently. I much prefer when the southerners think it always rains and snows up there.
 
I think I have realised the difference between myself and many on this thread. I actually really enjoy being at work. I love the crack and banter , planning for changes, seeing outcomes etc.
I find it very stimulating to be honest ( work ). I even get quite excited about some parts of it.

Been there 30 years so far , and 90% of the time it doesn’t feel like I am going to work , more like I am doing what I do ( quite well).

I think they may have to drag me out of there.
Fair play to you Marra, as long as you enjoy it then long may it continue, i remember thinking that i can’t believe i get paid for this many times over the years. Nothing like it.
I did 34 years and loved all but the last 2, the company changed, the job changed, the deciding factor for me was when the integrity of how i did my job went out of the window. The idiots in charge acted like nothing had changed while i had to face customers and basically bullshit my way through, it was demeaning and tbh embarrassing, the emperors new clothes if you will.
Made me seriously look at retiring at 55, even though i had always planned to go at around 57, just couldn’t sit through another corporate ”lets pretend nothing has changed in front of our staff and customer base“ meeting while sitting bewildered at the f@ckwits chairing it and wondering what planet i’d ended up on.
I had a wonderful career, no education to speak about, from a rough council estate in Donny to travelling the world with work and experiencing things i could only have dreamed of as a kid, glad i have the memories but glad i’m out now.
 
If they're tied to stocks they will have done bugger all.

Ftse hasn't actually risen much at all in part 3 or 4 years

In fact , it's hardly risen since 2007 - the financial crash , austerity , Brexit, Covid , Brexit part 2 ,Ukraine, Truss & Kamikwasi......

....... it never gets a run of growth

FTSE100 arent growth stocks, its all about the dividends. You sound like another UK hating expat like that moronic troll in Portugal who's also made similar clueless comments on the subject.
However, no pension fund in their right mind would only invest in the FTSE. They get invested in a diversified global fund.
The US markets which make up about 50% or so of the global stocks have seen spectacular growth over last 15 years
 
Downsizing may be the answer
- New home & spare cash

One option for me it to move back to the NE once the mortgage is paid off. I could sell this place and buy something bigger (upsizing?) and still liberate over £150,000 in fun money. Not that I would need anything bigger, a low maintenance one bed flat would probably suit. Just not sure where I'd want to move to.
 
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One option for me it to move back to the NE once the mortgage is paid off. I could sell this place and by something bigger (upsizing?) and still liberate over £150,000 in fun money. Not that I would need anything bigger, a low maintenance one bed flat would probably suit. Just not sure where I'd want to move to.
Want to go halves on the removals van(s)? :)
 
One option for me it to move back to the NE once the mortgage is paid off. I could sell this place and buy something bigger (upsizing?) and still liberate over £150,000 in fun money. Not that I would need anything bigger, a low maintenance one bed flat would probably suit. Just not sure where I'd want to move to.
Following the Rightmove thread, it is staggering what I could buy back in the north east for my average 3 bed semi. I’ve not done anything great to earn that, just waited while one housing market grew and the other didn’t.

Hopefully as time goes on and more people are recruited into remote posts, location is less important and things even up. Must be impossible for people going the other way now.
 
Following the Rightmove thread, it is staggering what I could buy back in the north east for my average 3 bed semi. I’ve not done anything great to earn that, just waited while one housing market grew and the other didn’t.

Hopefully as time goes on and more people are recruited into remote posts, location is less important and things even up. Must be impossible for people going the other way now.

Yep, same here. I could buy a house twice the size for half the price of my modest 2 bed semi.

I can remember moving south in the early 90s and seeing buying their first homes for over £100,000 and thinking that the world was mad and that there was no way I could afford that. Now those same places will be worth over half a million quid.
 
One option for me it to move back to the NE once the mortgage is paid off. I could sell this place and buy something bigger (upsizing?) and still liberate over £150,000 in fun money. Not that I would need anything bigger, a low maintenance one bed flat would probably suit. Just not sure where I'd want to move to.
Where are you now ?
FTSE100 arent growth stocks, its all about the dividends. You sound like another UK hating expat like that moronic troll in Portugal who's also made similar clueless comments on the subject.
However, no pension fund in their right mind would only invest in the FTSE. They get invested in a diversified global fund.
The US markets which make up about 50% or so of the global stocks have seen spectacular growth over last 15 years
My L&G pension pot hasn't budged in the past 4 years . That's a fact

Don't hate the UK at all In fact

Just some of the absolute wankers in it - particularly those in charge
 
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If they're tied to stocks they will have done bugger all.

Ftse hasn't actually risen much at all in part 3 or 4 years

In fact , it's hardly risen since 2007 - the financial crash , austerity , Brexit, Covid , Brexit part 2 ,Ukraine, Truss & Kamikwasi......

....... it never gets a run of growth
FTSE 100 hasn't done much but to say stocks have done bugger all is wrong. Mines 100% equities and has gone up nearly 9% last year
 
Following the Rightmove thread, it is staggering what I could buy back in the north east for my average 3 bed semi. I’ve not done anything great to earn that, just waited while one housing market grew and the other didn’t.

Hopefully as time goes on and more people are recruited into remote posts, location is less important and things even up. Must be impossible for people going the other way now.
Same here mate. Thanks to the absolute insanity of the Sydney housing market. I could, if I wanted, sell up here and move back to the North East a multi millionaire and I've done fuck all other than got in to the market at a great time.(around 2001)

I work in construction and was fortunate to find a well paid niche in my field, but it's just been all about the timing.

The kids here now will have no chance to replicate that and still enjoy the holidays and lifestyle I've had along the way. I don't even feel I sacrificed anything to get here. The market is so massively inflated, it's one or the other for them these days unfortunately. I feel I've just been massively lucky.
 
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We have a four bedroom house with only the two of us living here now. I'd happily rent a room or two out for £500 each a month but my missus doesn't feel comfortable about strangers living here (which is fair enough tbh).

£500 pcm for a room, what's the house worth?
 
Coming up to 4 Years for me. Left a job I loved (albeit couple of months after SPA) after 20 months in UAE when Mrs H diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Disorder/Impairment. Confirmed as Alzheimer`s about 18 months ago. Done loads of Holidays since but getting more difficult now as She is likely to wander off--even when with Family/Friends and stop to take a photo and gone!
Respite break booked for me early Nov (stress of sorting respite care and probably start a thread on that!) Going out to NZ to see Son and family early Dec for 8 weeks where I will have there support. Another respite break booked for Feb--feckin tough after over 50 Years together and over 48 married but health professions advice followed.

Make the most of it All!
 
Downsizing may be the answer
- New home & spare cash
In a unusual, for me, bit of foresight we bought a smaller house when they were cheap as chips in 2010, where we would like to retire and rented it out. Now the time has come to possibly move into it I’m not I could sell the house we’ve been in for 20 odd years.
 
Where are you now ?

My L&G pension pot hasn't budged in the past 4 years . That's a fact

Don't hate the UK at all In fact

Just some of the absolute wankers in it - particularly those in charge

I'd be looking at what kind of fund it is invested in. Most schemes will give you a choice to change the investment but the default one is often chosen for the firm's benefit rather than yours.
That's the going rate in Sunderland on spareroom. Could probably get more given the location.

Yup - £500 is the going rate for Sunderland:
 
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